Catching up with the boy

There is one advantage of Peter being in London so much; every so often he earns enough loyalty points for a free hotel stay. So this weekend we took advantage of that and landed this rather huge suite in Edinburgh, where Annabel had her own little room off ours round the corner. We went to catch up with Tom, although we nearly had to retreat at the first sight (and smell) of his room!

I went straight out to Sainsbury's to arm myself with Febreze, polish and sweet smelling cleaning spray, before tackling the mountain of laundry. It looks (and smells) quite different now. I hadn't seen or smelled anything quite like it since both my brothers were at home. The next thing we did was take him for a much needed haircut. Unfortunately we couldn't persuade him to shave off the ridiculous moustache! We also made him start filing his notes. My colleague at work refers to him as a "poor, henpecked comrade".

Nonetheless we had a great time exploring Tom's world with him. Anni enjoyed shopping with the spending money she squirrels away. Tom enjoyed us buying him some real food. 

We had a lovely Saturday evening dinner in one of our favourite places to eat, Whiski. We had planned to go the the zoo, which has long been sitting at the top of Tom's to do list, but the rain was relentless and so we abandoned that idea. On Sunday, we went with Tom to his new church, which was absolutely brilliant, fantastic teaching and buzzing with life. Afterwards we had lunch in his favourite local bistro, Olly Bongo's, where he treats himself to a ginoromous breakfast once a week.

Just nearby we happened upon a fabulous vintage shop where Anni found a bargain skirt and Tom bought a Russian text book for a bargain £1.85. He is loving his Russian course and his lecturer keeps telling him he sounds very authentic. All in all, we came away happy. He has made some good friends and all is going well (apart from the cleaning!) 

I have to say, I love Edinburgh. I could quite happily live there myself.